Thora went to her first “puppy preschool” class today! She got to socialize with lots of other puppies and their owners, and she made good progress on learning the “sit” command. She’s always responded to “come,” because she’s such a lovebug and always wants attention, but we’re reinforcing that too. “Down” and “stay” will be next on the curriculum.

When I was younger, under a different name, I published an obscenity-laced tirade against Andrew Jackson that I am not going to link to from here, because it was egregiously profane. But for the record, my stance on Andrew Jackson hasn’t changed. He was a traitor to our country and a genocidal killer, and the fact that he’s still—to this day!—held up as some kind of American hero is both utterly baffling and deeply, deeply offensive to me.

Don’t talk to me about the Battle of New Orleans or paying off the national debt or whatever. Don’t even start. I’m sure Hitler was nice to puppies. Jackson defied the Supreme Court’s edict requiring him to abide by the treaties the United States had made with the Indian nations, and unlawfully forced tens of thousands of people on the death march we call the Trail of Tears. Among the Cherokee alone 15,000 were forced to march, and 4,000 died—more than one in four, many of them children. For this genocidal act Jackson takes his place among history’s greatest monsters. He betrayed our Constitution and murdered thousands of innocent people. He was not a President but a dictator.

And we have this monster on our money.

This really shouldn’t be in the “annoyances” category. What Andrew Jackson inspires in me is more accurately described as “rage.” Seriously, don’t talk to me about Andrew Jackson, I start yelling and spitting. I can barely go to the ATM because they always give you twenties. Okay, that’s an annoyance—the ATM thing. I’m going to change the title of this post from “Things That Annoy Me: Andrew Jackson” to “Things that Annoy Me: Automated Teller Machines,” and then everybody will be completely baffled until they get to the last sentence.

I’ve been able to harvest quite a lot of tomatoes over the past couple weeks—the cherry tomatoes ripened first, and they’re still coming in waves, while now we’re getting these little plum-sized guys as well. I honestly don’t remember the varietal: I think it was either Stupice or San Francisco Fog. I’ve also gotten a few bigger, darker tomatoes from our third plant, though most of those are still green. (Was it Cherokee Purple? Next time I’m writing the varieties down somewhere.)

So I’ve been making a lot of tomato salads. Garden tomatoes with cucumber, olives, and feta—or with basil and fresh mozzarella—yum! Still, the tomatoes are coming faster than we can eat them. Time to start foisting them on the neighbors!

I snapped this while the boys were watching television—an uncharacteristic moment of stillness. They always look so much older after a haircut!

The show was “My Little Pony.” Robin is a brony now. He got some birthday money from his great-grandmother and he decided to spend it on a Rarity doll. Maybe it’s a Rarity “action figure”? Anyway, that choice came as a surprise to us, because he mostly talks about Rainbow Dash—but after Rarity arrived, he started saving up his allowance for Fluttershy. So I guess those are his favorites!

The allowance is a new thing too. We’ve started giving him $5 a week, which would basically allow him to get one new pony a month (although some of them are on sale sometimes). We keep track of his money on a notecard attached to the fridge. It’s the Bank of Mom and Dad. The advent of the allowance coincided with the arrival of a weekly chore schedule—he’s now expected to let the chickens out of their coop every morning, and to help set the table for dinner.

Davy’s hit some new milestones too. He’s successfully transitioned into his own bed, in Robin’s room: it’s awfully sweet to hear the two brothers chatting to each other in the mornings. The next big challenge will be potty training. I’m going to give him six weeks or so to settle into the school routine, and then start pushing to get him out of diapers.